Petunia By Any Other Name
by LaRoseDeSoleil
Summary: Looking back, you wouldn't have thought the sisters would turn out the way they did. After all, Petunia was always the imaginitive one. But somehow, Lily ended up with everything


It's funny the way things turned out. If you were to guess how we'd grow up when we were children, this wouldn't at all be what you'd expect. Then again, as children we never knew about magic, so of course we'd never have guessed. Lily was always the practical one. I was always prone to flights of fancy. My imagination always felt more like home than the real world did.

Seven years old, Lily five. Even then, she seemed like the older one.

"_Mummy, I found a really straight stick with no twigs or nothing! I'm gonna paint it gold and then it can be a magic wand!" I ran inside, slamming the door._

"_That's nice, Petunia dear. But don't you think you should finish that sword before you make a wand?"_

"_Nuh-uh! Cause I can just point my wand and say Abracadabra and then it'll turn into a sword!"_

_"Well, that's convienent. Isn't Abracadabra a useful spell?"_

_"Yep!"_

I used to run around the house, yelling 'Abracadabra!'. So ironically like the curse that killed my sister.

_Lily stuck her head out the door of our room._

_"Petunia! Don't slam the door! I almost dropped my chemistry set!"_

_"But I found a magic wand!"_

_"Still on about that magic nonsense? You're not going to know anything about chemistry when you get to secondary school!"_

Thirteen years old, Lily eleven.

_An owl swoops in the window to land on the breakfast table, disinterestedly thrusting its letter-laden foot at Lily while snatching her bacon._

_"Mu-um, it stole my bacon! That's the best part!" Lily complained._

_"Look, it's got a letter tied to it, I bet it's tame! Can we keep it?" I exclaimed._

_Lily tentatively unfolded the letter. She read it several times, an incredulous look on her face._

_"Mum! I'm a witch! And there are loads of witches and wizards all over Britain, and now I'm to be allowed to go to boarding school to learn magic!"_

_Mum and Dad didn't believe it at first. Lily had never shown any signs of accidental magic, as the tiny wizard professor who visited to explain. But by 1 September, she and her new trunk full of robes were on that steam train, on the way to school. _

_On 9 September, I took a dingy overcrowded school bus to my school. My hyperactive imagination was not encouraged there. My English teachers wanted standard essays, at exactly the minimum length. My maths teachers wanted the equations done exactly the way they were on the board. _

_The students hated anyone who was not like them, and I hated their blind conformity and the dark, crowded, leaky-roofed building. So I dreamed and dreamed of what it would be like if it had been me who got the letter. Lily who was here, gleefully preparing her university résumé._

_I who was at the castle in the north, learning to take care of unicorns and do magic._

Fourteen, Lily twelve.

_I sat on my bed, trying to read. I wanted to be swept up by the book, taken somewhere far away from my mundane bedroom. Well, almost mundane. I was only trying to read, because the room was rapidly filling with periwinkle bubbles._

"_Lily, I thought you couldn't do magic out of school," I said, putting down my book in exasperation. _

"_It's not magic!" she laughed, "It's bubble gum!"_

"_Well, can't you do that in the other room?"_

"_It's no use now, they'll be here for days!"_

"_Well, now we'll have to live in a bubbly room for several days! What'd you do that for?"_

"_Oh, sorry, I forgot you weren't leaving tomorrow too."_

"_Lily!"_

_She only smirked._

"_Well, can I at least have some?"_

"_It won't work for you. It responds to innate magic in the chewer. _You_ haven't got any."_

Sixteennow, Lily fourteen.

_She brought home a boy from her school, James Potter. He was silly and arrogant and had very messy hair. He called her Lils and me Nia. I had never had a nickname before, and to this day I have none. He was the only one who ever called me that. _

_Although I was sixteen, I had never had a boyfriend. And of course perfect, sensible, magical Lily had James. They bickered constantly, but I could tell that they were in love. They made a better couple than James and I would have anyway. Sitting together on the garden bench. His ruffled dark hair resting on her flame-red hair. His teenager-fuzz-covered jaw next to her delicately curved one. _

_My mousy brown hair and horsy face looking out the window at them as I did the dishes._

_I always did the chores, even when she was home. My parents were always so happy to see her, tripping over themselves to ask questions about the magical world. It was Lily this and Lily that, top of her year in Charms, and Gryffindor won the house cup, and don't we just know she'll be a prefect? And Lily wasn't used to chores anymore, they had elves to do them at school._

"_Nia, Lily wants to show me the park!" James said._

_I had opened my mouth to say 'just let me get my coat,' when he spoke again._

"_C'mon, say you'll pick her spellbooks up! Please, Nia?"_

_And of course I couldn't say no to James. I roughly shoved her quills into a pen case, bending several, as they walked down the moonlight street, holding hands._

Nineteen, Lily eighteen.

_James proposed to her. They were to get married as soon as they finished Auror training. _

_I met a sweet boy at work. He's not handsome, and he has no imagination, and he's certainly no James, but he seems to think I'm pretty, and he's in line to be the next director of the firm. _

_I don't need imagination anyway. Some evil wizard's been gaining power, and from Lily's description of Aurors, it seems she'll be right in harm's way. _

_My secretarial job is much safer, and dating the future director certainly gives me job security. He's hinted that some day he'd like a nice house with a garden, and he's always wanted a son. That would be nice. A nice normal family._

_I don't need any of that magic business._

Twenty-three, Lily twenty-one. Was twenty-one.

_He killed her. That's what all this magic business will do to you. Dead. And me with two little boys to raise now. _

_That's you, Lily, get married and die tragically like Romeo and Juliet. Leave me in the kitchen, cleaning things. _

_Well, her boy isn't going to be like her. I'll take the magic out of him, and he can grow up where it's safe. And he'll damn well do the dishes, every day. My little Duddy, though, he'll go to an academy. I won't send him off to have his sweet little spirit crushed. And he'll never ever do any chores. He won't be a servant just for being a normal healthy boy._

_James died for her. Everything for her! Everything on a silver platter for perfect, clever, tragic heroine magical Lily! _

_And nobody but him ever called me Nia._

_My Duddy will have as many nicknames as I can think up._


End file.
